Untitled Blog

Is Surface Laptop Cheaper/Faster than MacBook Pro [at first glance]?

Wed, 03 May 2017 16:03:50 +0800

I watched MicrosoftEDU event today and I had some thoughts. During the announcement, they claimed that it is faster than i7 MacBook Pro and has up-to 14.5 battery life. When they reveal the $999 price tag, everyone started applauding. It is indeed cheap for a premiere laptop. I am always been a MacBook user, and I am curious, is Surface Laptop a better choice now? I did a little bit research, and try to find out if it is cheaper and faster than MacBook Pro.

(this is not a review, it is just a simple comparison)

In order to compare the price, they should have similar configurations.

First, let’s take a look at CPU and GPU. Microsoft did not reveal the models on their website (just like Apple), so I searched online and found them on forbes. The i5 variant is i5-7200U and i7 variant is i7-7660U. I noticed that the Thermal Design Power (TDP) is 15W. When I purchased the MacBook Pro and chose between non touchbar version and touchbar version, I did research about it. Basically, TDP decides the average performance a processor can maintain for a long run (not peak performance). MacBook Pro non touchbar version possesses a CPU of 15W TDP, and 24W TDP for touchbar version. So I think I should compare surface laptop with MacBook Pro’s non touchbar variant. cpu-monkey has a benchmark comparison between i5-6360U (MacBook Pro non touchbar) and i5-7200U (Surface Laptop i5) and the difference I perceive is i5-7200U is slightly faster than i5-6360 (less than 5%). But for GPU, it is another story: Here I found the benchmark of both Intel HD 620 (Surface Laptop i5) and Intel Iris 540 (MacBook Pro non touchbar), where Iris 540 is more than 50% faster than HD 620, which means Surface Laptop’s graphic card is noticeable worse. In addition, even 2016 MacBook Air 13-inch’s graphic card is around 30% faster.

Then then operating system. Surface Laptop is shipped with Windows 10S, which designed to be power efficient, but at the same time, it can only run Windows Store Apps. For many users I think in order to use the software they are already familiar with, such as Photoshop or play games on Steam, Windows 10 Pro seems to be the only solution right now (extra $50). But I am not sure if 14.5 hours battery still works for Windows 10 Pro or not.

Now it comes the price. Microsoft makes Surface Laptop affordable by setting the starting price to $999 with i5 processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD. In order to compare with MacBook Pro (non touchbar) which starts with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. It is fair to configure Surface Laptop with similar configuration. So on Microsoft’s website, the Surface Laptop (8GB RAM + 256GB SSD + Intel HD 620 graphic + Windows 10 Pro) prices at $1349. And on Apple’s website, the similar configuration prices at $1499. Surface Laptop is 10% cheaper but it comes at a price that you get a worse GPU. Speaking of connectivity, Surface Laptop lacks Thunderbolt and USB-C, which is a disappointment. There are some gains for Surface Laptop: More responsive keyboard, USB-A, touch screen and etc.

Last, I want to see if fastest Surface Laptop is faster than i7 MacBook Pro or not. When I watched the video, I thought it was impossible, because MacBook Pro has a 15-inch variant (with dedicate GPU), which is very very powerful. I tried to compare 15-inch MacBook Pro’s i7-6920HQ and Surface Laptop’s i7-7660U, it is not at the same level. Then I think they should only mean 13-inch MacBook Pro. Then I compared 13-inch MacBook Pro’s i7-6567U and i7-7660U, and Surface Laptop’s CPU is faster (about 25%). However for the GPU, just like the i5, i7 MacBook Pro (touchbar)’s Intel 550 is 16% faster than i7 Surface Laptop’s Intel 640. Overall, consider the Surface Laptop i7 is $200 (1599 vs 1799) cheaper, the value is good.

How to Display Number of OmniFocus Flagged Tasks on Touchbar (using BTT)

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 16:42:55 +0800

Recently I found that BetterTouchTool could place some widgets on MacBook Pro’s new Touchbar, like a app switcher. Due to its AppleScript capability, it can do many many different things. Today I wrote a Apple Script that could get number of flagged tasks in OmniFocus and let BTT display it on the Touchbar. It is quite cool.

Prerequisite

I tested the method with OmniFocus 2.8.3 and BetterTouchTool 2.071.

Here is how to do it

under the “TouchBar” tab, add a new Widget,
from the “Select Widget” dropdown menu,
select “Run Apple Script and Show Return Value”,
- (optional) drag an icon to the Widget if you want: icon from omnigroup website
open “Advanced Configuration”
set the name of the widget to whatever you like

Copy the code below into the box

tell application "OmniFocus"
        
    tell the default document
        set flaggedCount to count (flattened tasks whose completed is false and flagged is true)
        return (flaggedCount as string) & " tasks now!"
    end tell
        
end tell

click “Run Script” to check if you get the expected output,
save and now you have it!

Sublime Text vs Visual Studio Code vs Atom Performance Test (Dec 2016)

Tue, 27 Dec 2016 12:01:58 +0800

Speaking of text editor, I have been using Sublime Text for around 3 years, and I have no issues with it. I tried Atom one or two year ago and I was impressed by its active community (GitHub! I love GitHub). The UI especially intrigued me. The reason I sticked with Sublime Text was performance: Atom was slow, even after when Atom 1.0 was announced.

These days, I Googled “Sublime Text vs Atom 2016”, trying to see if Atom has significant improvement when I found Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio is also built using Web Technology like Atom, but reviewers said it is faster. So I want to do a test and find out their performance difference.

Editor Versions

Editor	Version
Sublime Text	3 beta, build 3126
Atom	1.12.7
Visual Studio Code	1.8.1
TextEdit	1.12 (329)

Methodology

The hardware I tested on was a MacBook Pro 2016 13-inch with Touch Bar (with 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU and 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM running macOS Sierra 10.12.2). All programs I could see had been closed. macOS’s stock TextEdit was used as a reference.

Launch Time

Each editor was launched from Dock by clicking the icon. I recorded the time between clicking the icon and the moment when first window was full loaded.

Window Open Time

Each editor was launched first with all windows closed afterwards. I would record the time between clicking the “New Window” from the menu in the Dock (or its equivalents) and the moment when first window was full loaded.

Files Open Time

Each editor was launched first with a window open. A file was dragged from Finder to its window. I recorded the time between the file being released and the moment when the file was full loaded.

Files Generating

Four files contained 10k, 100k, 1m, 10m lines were generated by the following Python script. The files’ sizes were 370KB, 3.7MB, 37MB and 370MB respectively.

template = '''

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    return 0;
}

/*
%s
*/
'''

string = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890\n'

with open('test-10k.cpp', 'w') as f:
    f.write(template % (string * 10000,))

with open('test-100k.cpp', 'w') as f:
    f.write(template % (string * 100000,))

with open('test-1m.cpp', 'w') as f:
    f.write(template % (string * 1000000,))

with open('test-10m.cpp', 'w') as f:
    f.write(template % (string * 10000000,))

Files Open Time

Each editor was launched first with a file loaded. I used Activity Monitor to add up memory used by all its processes. The file used was the 370KB one in “Files Open Time” tests.

Result

Launch Time

TextEdit does not open a edit window when launching, instead it shows a file picker window.

Window Open Time

Notes:

TextEdit has a pop-up animation when opening a window, which slows it down a little bit.

Files Open Time

Notes:

Atom could not open “1m lines” file and reported “crashed” after around 40 seconds.
Visual Studio Code did not allow me to open “10m lines” file saying “very large”.
Atom could not keep syntax highlighting when openning the “100k lines” file.
Visual Studio Code could not keep syntax highlighting when openning the “1m lines” file.
TextEdit does not have syntax highlighting feature.
TextEdit has a pop-up animation when opening a file, which slows it down a little bit.

Memory Usage

Conclusion

Atom and Visual Studio Code perform significantly worse compared to Sublime Text and TextEdit: launching and Opening windows are seconds slower which it is noticeable and they occupied much more RAM.

Visual Studio Code has advantages over Atom in opening files and RAM usage. It could handle larger files and handle it faster than Atom. When I tested the 3.7MB file, it opened it within 1 second while Atom took more than 2 seconds.

Sublime Text is still the speedy king, Visual Studio Code second and Atom is the last.

Extra words: I start to use Visual Studio Code to replace Sublime Text from this month, it seems more fun.

Extra words (2): I switched back to Sublime Text again after a few weeks: with hundreds of file opening, the speed difference is indeed sensible.

Where Do I Host My Personal Domain Email?

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 02:14:09 +0800

Speaking of having an email address with my own domain, it is really a cool thing. I have been using i@xinhong.me for a period of time, and I host it in Zoho. Zoho provides free service for hosting custom domain email and, it is adequate to my requirement. However, I do not know if the “free” leads to negative side: emails sent Zoho’s email server are probably treated as junk mails [1][2][3]. I personally have not met such situations, but I decide to find some more reliable, reputable providers.

There are some big names like Google, Office 365, and Rackspace, Fastmail, etc. They all starts at around $5/month. My website is hosted on DigitalOcean, where I spend $5/month for my whole website. I do not think I need another $5 service just for my email. It is overkilled. All I need is a service can host my email, just one account, one or two alias, not too much emails. Then I found mailbox.org from some forum, telling that they provide custom domain support but not advertising it. I gave a try and paid 2 days after.

It only costs me 1 euro a month, 2GB storage and up to 3 alias. It is hosted in Germany and claims to be “Secure”. I found mostly positive feedbacks online, and my experience is quite good. Then that’s it, that is all I want, and I think if you have similar need as mine, that might suit you as well.

My email addresses now are

sam@xinhong.me
i@xinhong.me (I think it is too blatant)

*: I do not get any benefit/discount from mailbox.org by writing this post.

How or Do

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 20:53:07 +0800

As for me, a great tool will motivate me to do a corresponding thing. I remember last year, I was so enthusiastic to purchase Omnifocus because I thought it could change my life, bring tidy life style. The reality is, I have not yet depended more than 30% of my life on it. It acts as if it was the bundled “Reminder” App.

Right now, I am typing using iA Writer. I was intrigued by its advertisement and well made website/videos. I think I will become a profound writer.

I think I know it is what I want to do matters, instead of what I use.

Two CityU Apps Took Down from App Store 两款 CityU 应用下架通知

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

On 07 Dec, 2015. In an email regarding my two Apps from City University of Hong Kong:

VPSA, Dean of Students and Director of SDS are concerning the security of this kind of app because it’s possible that the apps may store the username and password and perform any action on behalf of any user in any of CityU’s Enterprise Systems.

My intention on these Two App is only to provide a better booking experience for CityU students and staffs. I have not done or tried to store any usernames or passwords or users. This project is competely open source on Github and directly built then published without adding any lines of codes.

However, to avoid any unhappiness likely to occur to me, I will no longer make CityU Sport Facility or CityU Library available on App Store. This is also to avoid ethic and potential security issues.

I am sorry for any inconvenience to University and current users. This project will be only for technical exchanges.

Xinhong LIU 2015-12-07 17:08

2015 年 12 月 7 日. 根据香港城市大学发的邮件:

(翻译：)VPSA, Dean of Students and Director of SDS 关注这类应用的安全问题因为这类应用可能会保存用户名和密码，或是以用户的名义在学校的企业系统中进行一些操作。

我写这两个应用的初衷是为了给城大师生一个更好的订场和图书馆体验。在此期间，我从未试图收集用户的 EID 和密码或是图书馆的 PIN。这个项目完全在 Github 上开源，上传至 App Store 的过程中本人没有修改过一行代码。

然而，为了避免将来在我身上发生任何不愉快的事情，我决定将 CityU Sport Facility 和 CityU Library 两款应用从苹果官方 App Store 下架。这个举动同时也是为了避免道德和潜在的安全问题。

校方和用户们如有不便很抱歉。从现在开始这两款应用只做技术交流之用。

刘心鸿 2015 年 12 月 7 日下午五点零八分